Archive for May, 2005

I always loved Alias Smith & Jones when I was a kid, it was instantly accessible and had the right balance of humour, irreverence and action I liked Pete Duel (Hannibal Hayes) from the start, affable and with an infectious smile he was precisely the sort of person that young boys would imagine being when they grew up, the dashing cowboy the bad guy made good. I did not know that it stopped being made in 1971 due to the untimely death of Pete Duel who committed suicide on the 31st December 1971 at the age of 31, a mere 21 days after I was born. Pete Duel was by all accounts a deep, sensitive and caring man. A genuine idealist passionate about the environment he wrote poetry and got involved in environmental projects a lot. I have heard some of his readings and it is plain that he saw the trouble that our lifestyle was putting us in, crucially he made the link that this was a direct result of the relentless pressure to have everything bigger, better, cheaper, quicker etc. One has to wonder what he would have made of the situation nowadays, I suspect he would not have been pleased. It saddened me to think that someone who fought against the status quo at a time when it was not easy to do so should have felt compelled to take his own life perhaps because of the pressure he felt at taking things too much to heart. The world is robbed of a valuable presence when people like Pete Duel are lost. I believe there is a very fine line between caring enough and caring too much, the key is more in the effect of the caring, there seem to be a number of examples of people who are passionate about things and it has an effect on them too much to bear. Pete Duel was caught in sadly an all too familiar triangle of sensitivity, alcohol and a gun and it was this that led to his death.

Why is it that we have our lives cheapened by the constant celebrity of mediocrity. We only ever seem to hear about the vacuous imbeciles who appear to wish to justify the term ‘Oxygen Stealer’, so often there appears to be no merit in what they do at all. I know Pete was not the only actor in Hollywood who cared and was involved in good causes, I know of Charlie Sheen and Mike Farrell not to mention Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon who continue to work tirelessly for a better world. I admire them immensely for it because they have chosen that path knowing that it will lead them often outside the mainstream, I know this path in my own life and have trodden it a long time. It is ultimately the only one to take if that is the way that you feel, but whilst it is fulfilling and gives you your integrity, there is no doubting that it is a lonely path and for some perhaps too much so.

In the case of Pete Duel it seems to be summed up by his Alas Smith & Jones co-star Ben Murphy “you would have loved him.” What a great pity we never really got the chance to.

GLEN CANYON EULOGY

Now I weep with unknown brothers
for our land I never knew.

Land once taken gone forever
raped and stolen from our view.

Time and distance culture different
that decided I not see
land now taken gone forever.

By the white skin.
Weep now white skin.

By the white skin
you and me.

Song Of The Day ~>Jamiroquai – Emergency On Planet Earth

Original Comments:

baracuda made this comment,
He looks like your man out of men behaving badly, not Clunes, the other one, what’s his name, shagged that Amanda Holden, oh you know the one…
[Redbaron responds – Neil Morrisey’s the fella you’re after. I after thinking he looked a little more like Richard Hammond your man out of Top Gear.]

comment added :: 30th May 2005, 12:26 GMT+01
Katie made this comment,
You’re becoming a tiny bit macabre babe with all these eulogies. Things are a bit weird for me at the moment, I think you know why and home doesn’t even feel like home any more so that’s why I’ve been a bit quiet. Many thanks for the repromotion though. Talk soon xxx
Visit me @ http://screamtoasigh.blog.city.com

I love politics, I am passionate about it and have been for a while. Granted the democratic process is a little lost on me since I consistently find myself disenfranchised by the current electoral system and that has been the case since the 90s. Nevertheless I have at least up to now felt a degree of interest and sometimes foreboding at a General Election. The sense that things are being decided, a course is being taken, a course which will send this country one way or the other. I tend to watch the results with bated breath, particularly in 1997 where the hopes were so high and the country rid itse;f of so many hated figures. No, by 97 I was not expecting a seriously socio-democratic Labour government, Labour had made it quite clear that they were no longer interested in improving the lot of the common person, they were simply hell-bent on getting into power and if that meant being more Tory than the Tories then that is what they were going to do. It is precisely what they did.

Sadly in this election I cannot see any major paradigm shift whatever the result, it does not seem to matter which one of the parties gets in because the policies will be the same, granted, one may be a lighter version of the other but it is simply a question of the express train to conservatism or the slow train. The terminus remains the same and the course now seems almost inexorable.

I feel sorry for those who have attained the age of minority since the last election, I cannot think how they could possibly fail to feel completely detached from the whole process. Were I in their situation it would hardly be an advert for our democratic process. Is it any wonder that people no longer choose to engage in society. To me one of the most illustrative points is that I shall not being staying up until the small hours to watch the results come in as I have tradionally done (even when my dissertaion was due the following day as in 97!) because it really makes no difference.

At times like this you wonder if there is anything you really can do to make the world a better place for your children. Furthermore if I needed anything to back up my belief that the current system is beyond reform current events serve to do so.

If you are going to vote today in the belief that this country has a secret ballot let me impart the following to you, on that polling card you’ve got there is a number, when you turn up at the polling station they’ll cross you off the list so you can’t vote twice and they’ll tear you a ballot paper out of the booklet, they’ll write your number on the counterfoil. Look at the back of your ballot paper, or on some it is even at the front there is a serial number which is the ballot paper number. This number is replicated on the back of the counterfoil of the book that they have kept, remember what was on the front of that counterfoil… I’ll leave you to make up your own mind as to whether you think that is especially indicative of what you consider democracy.

Song Of The Day ~> Bugsy Malone OST – We Could Have Been Anything

Original Comments:

protagonist made this comment,
Yeah – I have been reading about the British election here in the states and thinking of you. Well, I hope it works out in the end. I am not sure of all the politics in the process, but it is the same here – you vote democrat or republican – either way you’re voting for someone who will either anally rape you on one end or shove their dick down your throat on the other end – either way you’ll be taking the dick the hard way.
Fuck politicians.

Mandrake

comment added :: 5th May 2005, 17:37 GMT+01
Mark Ellott made this comment,
For the first time in my voting life, I was a true floating voter. Having thought I’d decided, I changed my mind in the polling booth and voted with my conscience rather than my head. Ah, well, it ain’t gonna make the slightest difference tomorrow.
Visit me @ http://longrider.blog-city.com

comment added :: 5th May 2005, 19:51 GMT+01
baracuda made this comment,
I was wondering about that number thing myself, they called out a number wrote it down and gave me the card, I thought it was a bit fucked up.
Anyway, your man George got in, which is pretty spectacular.

comment added :: 6th May 2005, 11:11 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
NICE ONE GEORGE !!!!!!
John

comment added :: 6th May 2005, 16:27 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
I hear a lot of argument here that it doesn’t matter, so people aren’t going to even bother to voite. Is the system corrupt? Is that feeling of citizen efficacy in the toilet? You bet. But in the end, it is all we have, that vote, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to abdicate what little voice I have. People asked me if I was going to vote in the last election, and I said “Yes, I’ll vote. But I won’t enjoy it.”
Kristie

I suspect those of you in the US may already be familiar with this term and its meaning, I was not. I use the word intelligent in parentheses because it seems extremely misplaced in this argument.

This is the attempt at a scientific form of creationism, to say that genetics is so intricate as to have had to have been manufacured by some other force, ie there being always method in the madness. I’ve heard some horse shit in my time but this seems to be up there in the Top 10, I mean it’s like saying well here we are in the 21st century, how about we scrap all that we have actually learnt and go back to what we were told in the 15th century. If it was all so perfect and pre-planned, why would there be so many anomalies? Furthermore if God says without faith I am nothing and intelligent design proves that things cannot be random then God has proven that he exists and therefore he cannot exist. (Pardon to Douglas Adams for shamelessly stealing his logic here)

Listen I know that it is hard to take that there is no ‘Grand Plan’ no ‘Scheme of Things’ but the fact is that there doesn’t have to be and it is gross blinkered arrogance of humans to believe there does. It is also a complete abdication of the responsibility of making things right in the world now. The whole “well, you’ll get your reward in heaven” idea is supposed to be some universal panacea for why it’s all shit at the moment. Sorry, not only do I not buy that but I think that it is this idea that is responsible for the perpetuation of the inequalities between the classes in the same country. Religion is not responsible for all the ills in the world, the trouble is it often exacerbates it and rarely in the developed world does anything to stop it.

The fundamentalist religious right so prevalent in the US is one of the most dangerous and reactionary movements of our time, far far more so than it’s fundamentalist islamic counterpart. It is this establishment, or its historical equivalent that denied scientific progress for so long, Galileo, Einstein, Darwin etc. It is astonishing to think that they would make the same mistakes now as they did then, and they are doing just that with this rejection of the theory of Evolution. It worries me greatly that this whole movement is not just confined to the US Bible bashing bigots but sanction has been given to Creationist schools in this country as well, I mean what the fuck is going on did I fall asleep and wake up in 1685?!

I just know there is some berk in Texas building an ark right now saying “Get yo’ things together Mary-Beth and grab lil Cleetus and Becky-May it’s lahk Noah ahl over agayin and Gahd has chosen urs to be the sayvyours.” “Better bring mah gun too in case any dem critters need a-shootin.”

It always amused me that so many humans have this view of heaven as being like a white fluffy version of Earth and yet are there ever any animals in it and what about aliens, or for that matter microbes, bacteria etc? Now if the latter types are there then it wouldn’t necessarily be so good after all now would it? Humans haven’t really thought this through very much now have they? Ah but people say, we are the only beings here with sentience so heaven will be for us. Of course this is speculative not to mention highly questionable as our ability to actually study the degree of sentience of another animal is fairly limited and we know really that there is every likelihood that other animals have some degree of it. Dolphins being but one example.

The problem for the human race is that we are currently the big fish in a small pond, however we are now aware that there is a larger pond out there, but we think that we are still the biggest fish in it. This means we have a vastly over-inflated idea of our own importance. It might perhaps do us good to come across some technologically advanced alien species just to take us down a peg or two, the trouble is that Billy-Bob and Mary-Beth and their kind would only want to shoot the aliens in a pre-emptive strike, more out of fear than anything else. If I were an alien observing this planet I would think that I didn’t want to go anywhere near it at present as our level of intellect simply isn’t up to it, and whilst lunatic ideas such as Intelligent Design do the rounds that situation is unlikely to improve for a while.

Song Of The Day ~> White Town – Your Woman

Original Comments:

Mark Ellott made this comment,
Intelligent design isn’t…intelligent, that is. My mother in law showed me a book written by the father of one of her pupils about this garbage. Full of circular arguments and non-secuiturs, it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. An attempt by the scientifically illiterate religious fundamentalists to foist their goatherd mythology onto the rest of us dressed up as some kind of pseudo-science. It makes my blood boil.
Visit me @ http://longrider.blog-city.com

comment added :: 3rd May 2005, 09:45 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
To quote that great ‘born again Christian’ George Bush when he was asked about ‘creationism’….”the jury is still out on this one”… 45% of Americans are said to believe this crap and that sure scares the shit out of me.
John

[Redbaron responds – Proves atheism to me mate, no omnipotent being could ever have countenanced the creation of anything quite as retrogressive as that idiot!]

comment added :: 3rd May 2005, 21:35 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
“Intelligent design” was the quasi-PC answer to “God created the earth.” Can’t say “God” in public schools, so they went with that, as if anyone would be fooled. Fucking morons. There is no intelligent response to be made to such utter idiocy. And what’s more, schools are bowing to the pressure. I don’t know about individual teachers, but it’s absolutely insane. So sorry I left that game.
Kristie

comment added :: 4th May 2005, 03:52 GMT+01
marcusf made this comment,
“intelligent design,” if we are the product of it George Bush is not the best example of it.
comment added :: 3rd August 2005, 04:09 GMT+01

Wotcher, Baron here, bit half cut but that’s what happens when the fecking beer festival has Buffys 9X on special! (9% bitter, mmm churlish not to!) Anyway I thought I might manage to escape the current blog craze but nay, I was got by a lurking Moog! I suspect many of you have been got already or are lying low hoping you may escape without being so. 3 of you however will shortly be disappointed! The setup is, you get got by someone else, you take this template below and answer 5 of the stems then pass it on to 3 other blog people that you know and yaa da yaa da yaa da you know the drill you’ve forwarded those chain emails round don’t try to deny it!

If I could be a scientist…
If I could be a farmer…
If I could be a musician…
If I could be a doctor…
If I could be a painter…
If I could be a gardener…
If I could be a missionary…
If I could be a chef…
If I could be an architect…
If I could be a linguist…
If I could be a psychologist…
If I could be a librarian…
If I could be an athlete…
If I could be a lawyer…
If I could be an inn-keeper…
If I could be a professor…
If I could be a writer…
If I could be a llama-rider…
If I could be a bonnie pirate…
If I could be an astronaut…
If I could be a world famous blogger…
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world…
If I could be married to any current famous political figure…

So Moog’s answers were:

if if could be an innkeeper i would drink all the rum….
if i could be a bonnie pirate i would drink all the rum and say “arrrr”
if i could be a chef i would drink while cooking with rum.
if i could be a librarian i would drink quietly.
if i could be a writer, i would drink all the rum, and be praised for my visonary (drunken) writings…

I sense a recurring theme there somewhere but haven’t quite pinpointed it. By the way Moog dear – I have bottle of Havana Club, fancy making a night of it after Twickers?

And here are mine:

If I could be a linguist I could talk shite to anyone, anywhere, anytime!
If I could be a bonnie pirate I could finally get my left ear pierced and grow my facial hair again, mmm crimson slacks and a sash – marvellous where’s my cutlass?!
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world I’d be a US Supreme Court judge and boy would I have a field day, bring it on!
If I could be married to any current famous political figure I’d keep Condoleeza Rice in the fecking kitchen, she wants to play tough conservative, where’s my dinner bitch, have you ironed my shirts?!
If I could be a writer then I really would be a very happy bunny.

And the lucky lucky 3 are: Naturally one has to put family first and therefore my adorable Twin does not escape. Secondly since the munificent Rosie Chick has been quiet of late perhaps this may spur her on. Finally my good friend the Charles Bukowski of Blog-City the splendidly acerbic Dr Mandrake.

Song Of The Day ~ >Dido – Who Makes You Feel?

Original Comments:

Rina made this comment,
That first one about being a linguist … how odd, isn’t that quite like you are? I kid, I kid.
Moog is flippin’ funny! As are you. Drunk Baron.

comment added :: 1st May 2005, 10:22 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
nooooooooooooo!!!!
how could you?!

sarah [sarah.a@gmail.com]

comment added :: 2nd May 2005, 10:01 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
if i were a linguist,i could talk all british like you.
good to hear you’re drinking – what is it that homer simpson says – “to alcohol – the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

you better hope Condie can actually cook. i think she just chugs bush jizz.

mandrake

comment added :: 2nd May 2005, 14:52 GMT+01
moog made this comment,
hey baron!!! we must make a night of it at twickers!!!
it will be sooo cool!!!! and its not long now!! 🙂
i have a good bottle of metaxa…and ill share it with you. 🙂
comment added :: 3rd May 2005, 23:39 GMT+01